The Outsider
by denihil
Summary: Short fic. Henriksen's impressions of the Winchesters.


Dean Winchester is busy chatting up his lawyer when Henriksen gets a first look at his little brother through the one-way mirror of the interrogation room.

Sam is sitting slumped awkwardly over the table, a look of vague resignation on his face. Dean had been calm, all smiles: this one looks utterly defeated. And guilty as well, almost ashamed. Which is interesting.

Henriksen would have liked to watch him for a while, but the lawyer will be in at any minute and he'll lose his chance. He nods to Reidy next to him, who opens the door.

Sam looks up, startled out of his thought, and almost immediately a fake smile stretches over his face. He doesn't put too much effort into it, though, and he definitely can't pull it off like his brother.

Interesting, Henriksen thinks again. Dean is clearly a sociopath, if a brainwashed one, but he is definitely not getting that feeling off this kid. Which means that the only way to explain his actions is that Sam Winchester is just buckets of crazy, like his father had been.

That would at least account for how the guy managed to pull off normal for so long. Might even be some weird genetic thing that doesn't set in until adulthood. Not that growing up in that family would have helped. God only knows what kind of weird shit had gone on in his childhood.

It's kind of pitiful, really. Henriksen's a long way from feeling _sorry_ for him – not after following his trail for so long, seeing what he's done – but he can't work up the same kind of hate that he has for Dean.

He pulls back the plastic chair and sits down opposite him at the table. Sam looks at him, then quickly at the door, at Reidy who's hovering near it, back at him.

"Let me guess," he says tiredly, although he's still half-smiling. "You're going to ask me to testify against my brother."

"Oh, Sam." Henriksen smiles back at him cheerfully. "We're a _long_ way past that."

Sam swallows, and the last of the smile fades. He looks away.

"Dean is long gone. We could put him away ten times over without your help." He pauses. Sam looks at the floor. "And it's not looking much better for you, Sam, I'm afraid."

Sam doesn't react to this. Henriksen had planned to say something else, maybe rub it in some more, but he is caught out by how different from his brother Sam's reaction is. It's hard to keep up feeling vindicated around this one.

The kid becomes increasingly uncomfortable under his gaze. His face goes red, and he turns away slightly, looks across the room.

"What are you looking at," he says finally.

"Just wondering about a few things, Sam." Henriksen stops again. Outside, the corridor is still quiet, no lawyer coming. "Like what you were going to use all those old weapons for."

Sam clenches his jaw, and doesn't answer.

"Okay then, maybe you can tell me this. Why the graves, Sam? Can you answer me that? Because even for a couple of psychos that's really making no sense to me. What made you pick 'em out?" He glances over at Reidy, who shrugs slightly. "We couldn't find a pattern to the bodies. Male, female, fresh, old..."

Sam looks back at the floor, and doesn't answer. Henriksen thinks again how defeated he looks.

"You wouldn't believe me," he says finally, voice flat.

"Why wouldn't I believe you, Sam?"

Sam finally looks up at him, and attempts to smile again. "Are you going to charge me for this session?"

Henriksen nods, whatever sympathy he'd had rapidly ebbing. He opens his mouth to answer, but before he can speak the door opens.

He stands up. "We were just leaving," he says to the lawyer. "Nice chatting with you, Sam."

Sam doesn't answer. He looks back at the floor.

--

In the office they've taken over, he has a look back over some of the files he has on Sam. He'd barely looked over them before – his brother was the murderer, Sam was the dumb accomplice – but now he's curious.

The academic records, which Henriksen had first assumed were faked, all seem to check out. The school files are silent on any mental problems. The only thing that stands out is Sam's girlfriend.

There is no hard evidence connecting Sam with her death, which he'd assumed just meant that no one had looked hard enough. When he looks back over the testimonies about the fire, though, something about it doesn't add up.

In the days before she died, Sam's girlfriend had apparently told several people that his brother Dean had come to visit. So, the guy goes with her for years and then suddenly flips when his brother shows up?

It's pretty obvious, in hindsight, that Dean had killed her. Probably started the fire afterwards to cover up what he'd done. There was no real evidence at the time, maybe, but it makes perfect sense with what they know now, with all the women Dean had killed in St Louis.

No wonder Sam had gone crazy.

The realization makes him hate Dean Winchester even more, something he didn't realize was possible. It's clear from everything that Sam has done since then that the guy is fucked for life. Institutionalization is the best he can hope for. What Dean had done was basically psychological mutilation.

Where the hell did someone get off on doing that? To his own brother?

He manages to get Dean alone one more time, after the lawyer leaves, before the two of them are transferred to the county jail. Figures he owes the poor girl's family to try to get something out of him. More than that, even, he just wants to know why.

Dean doesn't ask why he's being questioned again, doesn't ask for his lawyer. Unsurprisingly, he seems happy for the attention.

Henriksen sends the guard out, closes the door to the room, and sits down opposite him.

Dean grins at him. "Couldn't bear to be apart from me, eh?"

He smiles back calmly. "Why'd you kill your brother's girlfriend, Dean?"

Dean's face goes blank, and then angry. Which is, Henriksen knows, anger at being found out, not at the concept itself. He doesn't say a word.

Henriksen goes on. "You jealous, or what? No girls in the club? What was it?"

There's still no answer. The anger is gone already, or hidden; he smiles.

"And why the fire? See, I looked back over my files, Dean, and it looks like Mom actually died the same way." He stops, leans forward slightly. He looks into Dean's eyes, and Dean doesn't break the contact. "Course, everyone thought it was an accident back then, too."

Dean's smile doesn't waver, although Henriksen can see the repressed tension in his jaw, his shoulders.

"Is it like an inherited thing, Dean? Or you just carrying on a family tradition?"

There's a crash as Dean stands up suddenly, jerking back the chair. Henriksen watches him, calm.

"Don't say that about my dad," Dean says softly.

Henriksen still doesn't move, looks up at him without flinching.

The door opens, breaking the moment. It's the guard. Dean sits down again, his face still cold, blank with rage.

"Everything okay?"

"It's fine." Henriksen nods. Clearly he's not going to get anything out of Dean today. "We're done here." He stands up, looks down at him. "You make me sick, Dean."

Dean twitches slightly, but doesn't move. He doesn't resist as the guard takes him back to the cell.

Inside, behind the bars, Sam is sitting on one of the bunks, staring at the floor, hair blocking his face. By the time he's back at the cell Dean already looks relaxed again, smiling as he sits down on the bed next to his brother.

Sam ignores him. He looks up only slightly as Dean leans in, and says something close to his ear.

The sight makes Henriksen's flesh crawl. Even in his line of work there are things he doesn't want to think about.

Maybe he can't feel sorry for the kid. But the least he can do is recommend the two of them be separated.

--

It's almost a year later, in Colorado, when he next gets a chance to speak to Dean.

The two of them are sitting on a bed again. Sam is slumped back wearily against the wall of the cell they're chained up in. Dean looks up at him brightly, the old familiar smirk on his face.

God, he has been waiting for this for a long time.

"Take a good look at Sam." Henriksen says down at Dean, and smiles slightly. "You're never going to see each other again."


End file.
